Survival of Consciousness?
FieldMarshal 27 Mar 2008
Also, do you think it is our moral obligation to resurrect the dead who were to unfortunate by accident of birth to reach our tech utopia? This could be done by copying their brain states and putting them into a human body to achieve an infinite afterlife.
We at the Immortality Institute should make an oath to each other to ressurect each other so that in case we die we won't miss out on the opportunity to live forever in our utopia. Our children will carry on the cause, and if not them our children's children, so that this utopia is inevitable because it is the only cause that ultimately defines their lives and ours. If so, eternal life is our destiny
vyntager 27 Mar 2008
Also, do you think it is our moral obligation to resurrect the dead who were to unfortunate by accident of birth to reach our tech utopia? This could be done by copying their brain states and putting them into a human body to achieve an infinite afterlife.
It is too early to answer that question. I'd tend to say yes, but then what about not just resurrecting those who existed and died, but also enabling existence for all those who could have existed, but never did in the real history ? Those potential people are just as human as those who died, they could just as much benefit from existing.
Besides, it is not clear exactly how much computational power you'd need to "resurrect" those who died. If they were cryonically frozen, that might be easier than if they were not.
Even barring that, if they left information about them (writings, people who knew them, etc.) behind them, then it may just be possible to pull them back from the space of all possible human beings, having clues enabling us to narrow our search in that space (though that may not be enough to bring back anything but the set of all people who could have generated that information; whether any person pertaining to that set is by definition "you", or similar enough to you to be yourself, is an interesting question).
Finally, and other than that, how do you recover someone who's suffered information-theoretic death, other than by resimulating all possible human beings ? That would be huge, and maybe impossible to perform, except in under some very peculiar and dubiously possible circumstances (for instance, Tipler's omega point).
We at the Immortality Institute should make an oath to each other to ressurect each other so that in case we die we won't miss out on the opportunity to live forever in our utopia.
But how ? I may well be benevolent and willing to resurrect you, if you don't leave enough information behind you, either in the form of a well preserved body (or at least brain), or any other sufficient mass of information, you're dead for good. I'm pretty sure that if there's something such as the singularity, there'll be at least a few benevolent posthuman souls who'll be more than willing to bring back the dead, regardless of whether they made an oath or not for that matter. But they can't pull you back out of thin air
Think about it, really, if you are willing to secure your future.
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forever freedom 28 Mar 2008
As beautiful as it all sounds like bringing deceased people back to life it's all too complicated it would probably involve time travel and other stuff like that... Whoever is fortunate enough to achieve biological immortality, good for them; the others that came before are probably lost, which is why WE have to work as hard as we can to make biological immorality it come true as soon as possible instead of leaving it to next generations believing that they will be benevolent to the ones that came before them.
Brafarality 09 Jun 2008
It is wholly obvious, imho, of course.
The religious and scientific opposition appears to be mostly accumulated rationale for exploitation and separation more than anything else, though such a sweeping dismissal is poor debate form, I know.
We have a cat, Fee Fee, and, when my beloved is at work, I hang with the kitty kat in such an informal, chill out, primordial way that I, like most other pet owners, swear that my pet is not a soulless automaton, but a sentient being.
Just my very subjective 2 cents.
Luna 09 Jun 2008
She might come and purr, no need for food or any treat for that.
She might be distracted and keep playing.
She responds to my feeling, she responds to the enviroment.
She adapts, she learns, she changes.
Yes, she is a conscious, sentient being.
Brafarality 09 Jun 2008
My cat recognizes her voice and learnt that when I tell her come, it means I want her to come.
She might come and purr, no need for food or any treat for that.
She might be distracted and keep playing.
She responds to my feeling, she responds to the enviroment.
She adapts, she learns, she changes.
Yes, she is a conscious, sentient being.
You're setting yourself up for The Turing Test or something similar applied to animals!
Stand firm.
anderl 30 Jun 2008
That extra layer simply allows us to create more complex models. Artists and philosophers like to use broad brush strokes and try to paint some kind of metaphysical concepts around it, call it the mind, a soul, or sentience, but for what it is worth its a collection of neurons that fire off in an optimized pattern that has served us well in the past and with each successive repetition reinforces that pattern on our consciousness.
So if we model the entire infrastructure that is the individual brain then effectively that brain should mimic the same thought patterns that the original individual has. It is effectively the twin. It is not you but it will think its you with all the same knowledge and skills, and will react in all probability the same way you would react. But as the brain is plastic the two will deviate as their environment, and their reactions to it will differ. Even something as having a different viewpoint of the same room will stimulate their senses differently.
So I believe that consciousness can easily be created with every copy they make. But it will be a copy unless they reroute or replace each of your neurons with an equally powerful artificial one and retain the same connection priorities between them. Your consciousness will still be relatively intact, but your personality and memories might be a little ummmm.... off.
Heliotrope 01 Jul 2008
as for resurrecting the general population, remember 99% of them are kinda against imminst's views and if we resurrect them, it may not only be a waste of resources to resurrect people who did not want to live forever, but how are we gonna do it? they'd be buried in graves , eaten by worms etc. If they get resurrected against their wills, they may even consider suicide again, but unlikely since they'd have realized there was no heavenly kingdom like they imagined.
Edited by HYP86, 01 July 2008 - 12:25 AM.
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peterh78 13 Jul 2008
Bringing the deceased back is of course something that should be tried at some point in the future. At the moment of course this is still utopia. However, I think that through that many problems will arise. Who is worth being resurrected? Who is not? Who decides on these matters?
It is a very morally challanging topic!